


Rule 1 -- The 5 Rules of Time Travel Series

by Denise_Felt



Series: The 5 Rules of Time Travel [1]
Category: UFO | Gerry Anderson's UFO
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-18
Updated: 2012-02-18
Packaged: 2017-10-31 09:36:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/342543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Denise_Felt/pseuds/Denise_Felt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All hell breaks loose when Commander Straker receives a gift from a secret admirer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rule 1 -- The 5 Rules of Time Travel Series

**The Five Rules of Time Travel**

**Rule 1: Don’t Get Caught**

**(A UFO Story)**

by Denise Felt 2011

 

_A SHADO Writers Forum challenge story_

_A Sci-Fi Forever Forum challenge story_

 

_The 5 Rules of Time Travel_

_1\. Don’t get caught._

_2\. Change as little as possible._

_3\. Don’t forget who you are._

_4\. Avoid all paradoxes._

_5\. Get back home!_

 

**Prologue**

Damn Commander Straker anyway! It was all his fault, after all. At least, as well as they could piece things together after the fact, it was pretty clear that it was his predilection for interesting pieces of glass that started the whole mess. Although at the time, no one would have guessed that such a harmless-looking statue could cause so much trouble.

 

**Chapter 1**

Naturally Alec complained about the crystal obelisk. Straker merely tossed it from hand to hand and smiled while his second-in-command groused.

“Seriously, Alec,” he said when the colonel had wound down and sat at the conference table with his whiskey. “The Security guys have been all over it. They tested it extensively. Dr. Jackson himself said that it was completely inert. Just a pretty curio. A knickknack.”

Freeman continued to frown at him. “Ed, I don’t trust it. You don’t even know who sent it to you. What if it’s an alien trick?”

“Come on! How often do the aliens use our postal system?” Straker sat down at the head of the table, still toying with the tall clear column. “It’s obviously from someone who’s been in my studio office and knows what I like. I’m not worried, and you shouldn’t be either.”

Alec’s brows raised sardonically. “A secret admirer?”

His old friend grinned. “Could be. Could be.” He lifted the glass tower and looked closely at it. “I wonder who?”

“Hmmm . . . Annabella sure was upset that you wouldn’t have an affair with her during filming of that romance last month. But I doubt she would send you a gift for holding out against her. Have you said yes to anyone recently?”

Straker shook his head wryly. “No one I’d like to have ask ever does, you know.” He gave his friend a mock-glower. “It’s other people who have all the luck.”

Freeman held in a grin. Ginny had finally – finally! – slept with him last month. Surprisingly, their affair was still going strong; a first for him, although not for her. She was known, not only as picky, but also as a determined woman, and her affairs, though few and far between, were always of long duration. But it wasn’t until he’d been discussing her with his friend that he had realized that Straker had secretly carried a torch for the gorgeous colonel himself. Not that he would have ever acted on it. Ed was nothing if not totally dedicated to his job – and fraternizing with his senior staff would always be a no-no in his eyes.

“Well, you know what they say,” Freeman consoled his friend. “Unlucky at love, lucky at cards.”

Straker grunted in reply. “I’m not the one who plays poker, remember?”

Alec shrugged, a grin sliding out in spite of himself. “You should sometime. It has so much more to offer than chess.”

The commander glanced up as the door to his HQ office opened and Col. Lake entered. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He nodded to her. “Good morning, Colonel.”

“Good morning, Commander,” she said pleasantly as she sat at the table next to Alec. Always the professional during work hours, she didn’t touch his arm as it lay on the table as she wanted to do. But she was unable to stop the smile that lightened her face in response to his sidelong wink. No one had been more surprised than her when she’d agreed to have dinner with him after years of telling him no. Perhaps it had been because she’d found another grey hair that morning and felt the inevitable ticking of her biological clock in her head all day. Perhaps because she’d had another dream about Craig the night before, the one where he turned from a charmer into a murderous alien in front of her eyes. Or perhaps it was simply because his smile had been just that little bit more winsome than usual. Whatever the reason, she’d had no cause to regret her decision since then. Alec was going out of his way to prove to her (although she never would have asked him to) that he could be faithful and committed to their relationship. How could she resist that?

“Where’s Paul?” she asked. “I figured I’d be the last one here for the briefing.”

The commander said, “He’s on his way. I had him pick up the report from the Skydiver base personally.”

Obviously the commander wasn’t pleased with the problems they’d been having with the recent upgrades on the Skydiver computer systems. Virginia was fairly sure that deliberate sabotage had been involved, and by his comment, the commander thought so too if he was concerned about the status report making it to his office at HQ.

“What’s that?” she asked, gesturing to the obelisk in Straker’s hands.

“Hmmm?” He glanced down, then set the statue on the table in front of him. “It’s a gift.”

“Nice,” she said, but Alec beside her only grunted. She raised her brows at him. “What’s wrong with it?”

He said nothing, merely scowling into his drink. The commander’s wry smile emerged. “Alec thinks it’s a trap.”

Ginny peered closer at the crystal object. “It looks normal.”

“Yes. And Security’s been all over it and agreed that it’s perfectly harmless.”

She glanced at Alec, who could be a bit of a bulldog when it came to his boss’ safety. Then back to the commander, whose amused gaze was on his friend.

“Col. Freeman’s instincts are considered exceptional,” was all she said.

“I know,” Straker agreed quietly, getting up to place the obelisk on his desk with a sigh. When he came back to the table he asked his second-in-command, “Better?”

Freeman met his eyes, seeing both the humor and the apology there. “For now,” he conceded, relaxing in his chair.

The office door opened to admit Col. Foster, who gave his commanding officer a sardonic look as he handed him the report. It was answered with a tiny quirk of Straker’s lips. Paul pulled up a chair to the conference table, grimacing at Alec’s look of inquiry while Straker leafed through the detailed pages of the report.

But Ginny kept her eyes on the commander.

After several minutes, Straker closed the report with a snap and took his seat at the head of the table. “Right,” he said, as if coming to a decision. “Before we go into the contents of this report, I’d like your take on the situation, Paul. What’s going on at that base?”

Foster wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to having his commander asking him for his opinion. It wasn’t the way he had been raised, nor was it the way he had been trained. But Straker chose his people – not for their training alone – but for their gut. And he was known to rely heavily on their instincts in crisis situations. Which this one was.

“It’s serious, Commander,” the colonel said, sitting forward in his chair. “There’s evidence of . . .”

He broke off at a curious sound. As one, they all turned to the crystal obelisk on the desk, which was emanating a piercing tone that grew shriller with each second. Covering his ears, the commander got up from his chair to grab the statue, but Alec was ahead of him. He swept it to the floor with one hand, but as it broke into pieces, an enormous flash of light blinded them.

When the light dissipated, the room was empty.

 

**Chapter 2**

Virginia barely caught herself before she fell in the dirt. Brushing off her hands, which had instinctively gone out to break her fall, she stood and surveyed her surroundings. She was in the desert. What desert or where was not immediately clear, but one thing was: she was quite alone. None of the other command team members seemed to have been brought to the same place that she was, since the barren landscape stretched on flatly for miles in every direction and no one else was in sight. There wasn’t even enough brush around for someone to hide behind. Smudgily on the horizon shimmered a row of dark mountains, but it was impossible to tell with the heat waves coming off the ground whether or not they were real or would turn out upon closer inspection to be a mirage.

Damn the aliens for playing another trick on them! That obelisk of the commander’s had obviously been one more trap to disrupt Earth’s defense network. And if all the command team had been affected the same way she had – thrown clear across the world – then HQ was going to be left virtually wide open for any attack their enemy had planned. Looking around, she could tell that it was going to be a while before she could get back to Wessex. And who knew what shape HQ would be in by the time they all found their way home again?

It would have been nice to just sit down and cry for awhile. In fact, it would have felt wonderful. There was a furious tightness in her chest that would have been lightened considerably by just letting herself go. But not only would a crying bout use up her energy, it would also take some time to get over. And she couldn’t waste any time trying to get home, even though she had no idea how long it was going to take her to find some sign of civilization in this wasteland. A lot depended on whether she was in the Mojave desert – or the Sahara.

A ribbon of dirt wound out of sight some distance away, and she made for it, hoping for a small stream to wash her hands in. But as she got nearer, she realized anew how the desert could distort what you thought you saw, because it wasn’t a stream at all. It was the road. She stood on the pavement for a while looking both ways before finally deciding to strike out in the direction away from the mirage mountains. Since the sun was directly overhead, she didn’t even know in what direction she would be walking. But sooner or later, the road would have to encounter a town.

Cheered by the prospect of eventually coming across people, she ignored the sun beating ruthlessly down on her and the dust choking her throat with every step. Setting her eyes on the point where the road met the horizon, she began walking.

* * *

By her wristwatch she had been walking almost two hours when she heard a sound. She stopped and looked back the way she’d come, which was vaguely west from the angle of the sun as it lowered from its zenith. On the horizon a small cloud of dust was forming. After a moment staring at it, she realized it was the dust cloud from a vehicle – an old one judging by the rumbling of its engine. Someone was driving toward her on the road. She moved a bit further off the pavement, so that the vehicle’s dust cloud wouldn’t envelop her as it went past, and hoped like hell that the driver would see her and offer her a lift.

Once it was closer, however, she changed her mind. She really didn’t want a lift from the guys riding in the cab of the ancient Ford truck that was even now slowing down. They looked to be very tough customers – both burly American Indians with long dark hair and drunken grins. She had backed some way off the road by the time they got out of their truck, but knew there was no way she could outrun them. She held her ground as they approached.

“Hey, lady!” one of them hollered. “Need a ride?”

She would rather have walked for weeks than get into a truck with them, but knew it wouldn’t be wise to tell them that. Instead she said smoothly, “Thank you, but I’m alright.”

The other one separated from his buddy, moving to the right so he could advance at an angle, boxing her in. “Doesn’t look to me like she’s alright, Crow,” he said as they both came toward her. “Looks to me like she could use a good ride.”

They both laughed at their joke while Virginia watched them out of wary eyes.

* * *

Sheriff David Peoria sat on the steps in front of his office and whittled as he talked with his deputy, Carl White Feather. Anyone eavesdropping would not have called it a conversation or even understood most of it, but the two men had known each other most of their lives and had no trouble communicating, even though they were both men of few words.

When the sheriff looked up from his whittling to search the quiet village street with sharp dark eyes, Carl already knew what he was thinking before he sighed.

“He’ll break his probation,” Carl prophesied in a resigned tone.

Peoria’s piercing glance met his momentarily, then went back to the wooden flute he was making for his nephew, his face impassive. But Carl saw the concern anyway and shrugged. “It’s his way.”

They both knew the deputy had given up hope for his sister’s son years ago. But Joshua Crow had been David’s friend growing up, and those bonds were hard to ignore, no matter how much trouble Crow had brought to the reservation since he’d reached adulthood. As a member of the tribal police, Peoria often found himself grateful for those times when his childhood friend was upriver at the state penitentiary. Grateful – yet guilty as well for being glad to have some peace in his village. Unlike Carl, Peoria didn’t believe in bad seeds. Merely in men who’d lost their way. And he still held out hope that someday his old friend would awaken from his drunken stupor and remember all those who cared about him. Crow had been released from prison four days before and had been relatively quiet since. Maybe it would last. Maybe it wouldn’t. But the sheriff hated waiting for the peace in his village to shatter once more.

As if conjured by his thoughts, the rumble of Crow’s beat-up truck came to his ears, and he and his deputy looked toward the edge of town where a dust cloud announced Josh’s arrival. Even though he’d been anticipating this moment for days, Peoria sighed once more, dreading the trouble. However, long before the truck parked next to the tiny motel just down from the sheriff’s office, his sharp eyes had noticed something different. Involuntarily he stood, although he could see clearly enough without needing to stand that it wasn’t Crow at the wheel.

Almost casually, a beautiful white woman slid down from the driver’s side of the truck, reaching back in for a second to grab a stylish jacket from the seat and laying it calmly over her arm as she closed the door and walked away. The sheriff gaped after her for a full minute before he recovered. Then he looked at his deputy.

Carl heaved a great sigh and levered himself up out of the rocking chair where he’d been sitting. Without a word, he headed down the steps and around to the back of the building where they always parked the police car. By the time its sirens faded on the way out of town, the sheriff had crossed to the truck and looked inside the cab. Two billfolds sat on the seat, and the keys had been left in the ignition. Curious, he opened the door and checked the wallets. One was Crow’s. The other belonged to his friend and fellow troublemaker, Billy Yakama. Both were empty except for their IDs.

Frowning, Peoria pocketed the keys, closed the truck door, and headed for the motel office.

* * *

It was a tough choice, but Ginny decided that the call to HQ could wait until after her shower. For reasons she didn’t want to examine too closely, she needed to wash the feel of their hands off her body even though they’d never even touched her skin. The showerhead sputtered, but the water felt wonderful. However, when she emerged from the tiny bathroom, she realized immediately that there would be further delays before she could make that call.

There was a man in her room.

Correction. There was another big Indian in her room. Ginny’s temper snapped.

“What the hell are you doing in my room?” she demanded, securing her towel around her.

He gave her a polite nod and asked, “Virginia Lake?”

She put her hands on her hips, refusing to be reassured by his calm manner. “Who wants to know?”

He held up her ID card and tapped the star on his chest. “I’m Sheriff David Peoria, ma’am, and I have a few questions.”

She considered him in silence for a while. Nearly as tall as the other two Indians she’d encountered, the sheriff was also as broad across the shoulders as they’d been. However, there any resemblance ended, because his body was both leaner and more tightly packed with muscle. Even wearing a faded denim shirt and jeans, that much was obvious. Where in the world were they breeding such large specimens? She felt betrayed by every western she’d ever watched as a kid. Those Indians had been slight and wiry, not threatening in the least. The stereotypes of Hollywood, she thought with a sigh, wishing she’d paid more attention to the workings of the film studio over her head each day so this wouldn’t be such a shock to her. But what had she ever cared for those unimportant things? She was a scientist, not a film critic.

She held out her hand for her ID, waiting until he gave it to her before she spoke. “Am I allowed to dress first, Sheriff?”

He remained unflustered. “Of course, ma’am. My office is just a few buildings down from here and across the road. I’d appreciate you coming over at your earliest convenience.”

That explained a lot. If he’d seen her drive up to the motel in a vehicle possibly belonging to a local, he’d be bound to have questions. “Thank you,” she said, grateful that he wasn’t going to require her to be half-naked during the interrogation.

He nodded again and headed for the door, but turned before leaving to gesture to her jacket, which was laying over the back of the room’s only chair. “You might want to soak that jacket,” he said. “Or you’ll never get the blood out.” He closed the door behind him before she could come up with a reply.

 

**Chapter 3**

“I’m sorry. The number you are trying to reach has changed or is no longer in service. Please try again.”

Ginny held the phone away from her ear and stared at it in consternation. Slowly she set the receiver back on its cradle. What was going on? Not only was she clear across the world from England, but now the emergency number for HQ wasn’t working. What did it mean? Had the aliens already taken out the base? Surely that wouldn’t make the number not work? Wouldn’t it merely ensure that no one answered?

After a few minutes pacing her small motel room, wild conjectures flooding her mind, she tried the number again and got the same reply. She then tried the other six emergency numbers and got the same message on two of them, private residences on three others, and a pet shop on the final one. She wasn’t sure what it all meant, except that the aliens had somehow been sneakier than she had supposed. Apparently they had affected the space-time continuum in a way she hadn’t fully grasped yet. She decided it might be a good idea to find out what year this was – just in case.

The tiny room boasted a TV set, and she turned it on, hoping to find a news program that would give the date. After a bewildering jumble of strange shows full of artificial laughter and dramas full of syrupy music, she found a station that seemed to be all news. That was odd in itself, but what was odder still was the date stamped at the bottom of the screen: May 4, 2005.

She realized after a few minutes that she was still staring at the date, almost as if she expected it to change back to 1985 if she only stared long enough. The announcer was speaking, but everything he said was just a roaring in her ears. Eventually she stood up and turned the television set off. So. The alien device had managed to move the entire command team of SHADO – not just across continents – but across time as well. She remembered the commander saying that the sculpture had been thoroughly tested and found inert. And indeed, it had sat quietly and hadn’t done anything until after Paul spoke. Voice activation? Had it needed the entire team to speak before it worked? If so, it was ingenious, because such a trigger ensured that they would all be in one place to be taken simultaneously.

For a working theory, it wasn’t half-bad. She supposed she should be grateful the aliens’ space-time trick hadn’t included a one-way trip to their home planet. In fact, she knew she was grateful for that small favor. She had a million questions, including what had happened to SHADO to make it fold in the past twenty years. It couldn’t have been destroyed by the aliens or their presence would have been felt globally by now. It made her head whirl, but she really had no way to get any of her questions answered at the moment. But one question she desperately needed answered as soon as possible. How in the hell was she going to get back home?

* * *

Peoria sat on the steps whittling. He hadn’t heard from White Feather yet, which had him worried. If the deputy had found Crow and Billy alright, he’d have radioed by now. Of course, he really didn’t expect that Carl would find them in great shape – for two good reasons. One, Crow wasn’t the kind of man to voluntarily give up his treasured truck for anyone. And two, Miss Lake’s jacket sported bloodstains and there hadn’t been a scratch on her – and thanks to her state of undress, he’d been able to check out a great deal of her skin to be sure. It didn’t take his law degree out of USD to be able to follow the lines there. She’d been trained – and trained well – to be able to take down two large men and walk away without a hair out of place. Since he hadn’t found a blade or a gun in her room, he had to assume she’d done it barehanded. And that meant that she was probably military. That – and the fact that unlike any other Wasichu woman he knew but one, she wasn’t carrying a purse. And that female had been a Naval officer.

He supposed it was always possible that she was FBI, but she didn’t have the smell of it. Besides, her clothes were too fine for the Bureau, made of raw silk and expensively styled. Nothing like the bland plastic clothing of FBI agents. As he whittled, his keen eyes noted her leaving her motel room and heading his way down the road. Her beautiful platinum hair gleamed in the sunlight, quickening his pulse. She walked briskly, a woman with an objective, and he wondered what kind of trouble she was bringing to his village?

But even as that worry settled on his heart, he saw her gazing at her surroundings with all the bewilderment of an abandoned papoose. He noted that her confusion didn’t affect her purposeful walk in any way and had to admire her spirit. What a mass of contradictions she was! He was looking forward to learning her secrets. He stood as she neared him, folding his knife and unhurriedly putting both it and the flute into the pocket of his jeans. Then he held out his hand to help her up the steps and almost laughed when she merely shook it perfunctorily and let it go. He had a feeling her secrets were going to be as unfathomable as the ocean.

Ginny looked around the sheriff’s office when she entered, hoping for clues to help her deal with her situation. A large map of South Dakota was pinned to the side wall above rows of filing cabinets, which told her two things. First, that he was organized enough to use filing cabinets in spite of living in the back of beyond. And second, that she was in South Dakota, on an Indian reservation in the Badlands at a guess. Great. She wasn’t really sure of the code of ethics in such a place. Would self-defense even work as a plea?

He sat behind his desk without a word, and she met his dark eyes with a flicker of surprise. She was used to being treated with a great deal of deference in every social situation but her working one, where the commander treated them all as equals and didn’t stand on ceremony with anyone. It surprised her momentarily that this Indian officer of the law wasn’t as courteous as he had seemed at first, but then, he was from a different culture. She sat down on the chair in front of his battered wooden desk, crossed her legs, and said, “How can I help you, Sheriff?”

Peoria noticed her surprise and understood it. This was a woman used to being treated well by the Wasichu males in her life, expecting their courtesy as her due. He was pleased when she neither pouted nor displayed any temper at his rudeness. A strong woman, this one, and adaptable. Briefly, he thought of Hepi, his desert flower who had handled so much with a strength drawn from the earth beneath her feet – until death had snatched her from him before she even reached full bloom. This woman was in full flower, quite aware of her power and unafraid to use it. He would do well to consider before falling for those wide grey eyes or that cool, crisp voice.

“We do not get many strangers here,” he said. “The Wasichus tend to go to Rapid City or Sioux Falls. Eagle Creek isn’t usually in their travel plans, unless they get lost exiting off of I-90.”

“Wasichu?” she asked, intrigued by the unfamiliar term. “Is that Indian for white man?”

“It’s not a matter of race,” he explained. “It’s an attitude.”

“I see.” And she thought she did. “I’m just passing through.”

He raised a skeptical brow at her. “Lost?”

Virginia shrugged daintily and gave him a smile. “You could say that. But don’t worry about me, Sheriff. I’ll find my way home.”

“Of that, Miss Lake, I have little doubt. But there’s the matter of stolen property to settle first.”

“Oh? What stolen property? Joshua Crow’s truck?” Ginny waved a negligent hand. “He leant it to me when my car broke down.”

“Is that right?” She gave him her sweetest smile. “Naturally, Sheriff. It was so kind of him to help me. He was a perfect gentleman, I assure you.”

“Uh, huh.” Not the Crow he knew. “And the blood on your jacket?”

She flicked a finger down her sleeve where he had seen bloodstains before. It was completely clean. “What blood?”

He wanted to grind his teeth, but could hardly fault her for following his advice – even though he’d meant it sarcastically at the time. “Miss Lake . . .”

Unexpectedly she grinned, her eyes sparkling like quicksilver for a moment before she sobered. “Really, Sheriff. I didn’t want to have to say anything about that.”

“Why not?” he growled at her, forcing himself not to react to her smile as he wished he could.

She lowered those remarkable eyes and said, “Well. It’s just that his friend wasn’t quite so helpful, if you know what I mean. I’m afraid he didn’t want to let me borrow the truck at all. He even punched Joshua on the nose and made it bleed.” She sighed and met his eyes again. “He really didn’t behave well at all about it.”

“That’s the only part of your crazy story I believe!” Peoria said harshly, but she merely looked inquiringly at him. He reined in his temper and tried a different approach. He spread his hands and said, “Look, Miss Lake. Josh Crow and Billy Yakama are known troublemakers in these parts. If they’ve done anything to hurt you or threatened you in any way, you are quite within your rights to press charges. No one will fault you for that. In fact, the village would be grateful to you for giving me a reason to lock them up.”

“I don’t understand, Sheriff,” she said, rising to her feet. “I’ve told you what happened. I have nothing more to add. I’m sure they’ll be back to pick up the truck when they find the time. Feel free to ask them their side of the story, but I don’t think you’re going to find them disagreeing with me. In the meantime, is there a taxi or bus service that goes to Rapid City or Sioux Falls from here? I really need to be on my way.”

He sighed. “Marge at the diner has the bus schedule posted. What about your car?”

“My what?” she asked, caught off guard. “Oh. Well, it’s going to need some serious work done to make it roadworthy again. It was blowing smoke everywhere. I’ll come back for it later.”

“Uh, huh.” He was sure her car (if she hadn’t stolen that one too) wasn’t the only thing blowing smoke at this point. But he had no way to contest her version of events – not yet anyway. The bus to Rapid City didn’t come through till midnight, so he felt reasonably secure in letting her leave his office. There wasn’t anywhere she could go, and he’d know more about what really happened once Carl got back with him. He watched her walk across the road toward the diner and rubbed his chin. He’d deal with her later.

His radio beeped, and he toggled the switch. “Yeah, White Feather. What’s the situation?”

“Not sure, chief,” answered the deputy.

Peoria frowned at the radio. “Why not? Didn’t you find Crow?”

“I found him alright,” Carl said laconically. “But him and Billy aren’t saying much.”

“Bring them in,” the sheriff replied grimly. “They’ll talk to me or else!”

“I doubt it, chief.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re dead.”

 

**Chapter 4**

Joshua Crow and Billy Yakama’s lives had ended the way most violent ex-felons lives do. Violently. Sheriff Peoria counted sixteen separate stab wounds between the two men – nine in Crow, and seven in Billy – and all in the chest and stomach. Somehow none of the wounds had managed to hit the heart, and the sheriff was fairly certain that shock and blood loss would end up being the cause of death in both cases.

Which didn’t jibe with any military training he’d ever heard.

Another puzzling thing was that the angle of entry for all of Crow’s wounds looked to be about seventy-five degrees, and for Billy’s it was about a hundred and five degrees. Peoria met White Feather’s eye after examining the bodies and said, “There’s no way these guys were killed during a fight. They were already on the ground when they were stabbed. Hell, there’s dirt in the wounds!”

Carl looked sheepish. “I know I’m not supposed to move anything, chief,” he began. “But that’s my sister’s boy there!” He broke off to swallow the lump in his throat, and Peoria got up and laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“I know. How did you find them, Carl?”

The older Indian surreptitiously wiped his eyes before turning back to his boss. “Face down in their own blood.”

The sheriff dropped his hand in surprise. After a long moment, he let out a string of Lakota curses that were no less vehement for being said under his breath.

* * *

The diner was like a bad dream. The tiled walls were chipped, the tabletops badly scarred, and the floors in need of a good scrub. But the coffee was excellent, so Virginia decided the rest didn’t matter. She ordered the special of the day from the pretty Native American waitress, hoping that the meatloaf would be as good as the coffee, and looked out the window at the empty road. Sheriff Peoria had ridden off a while ago on an ancient Harley, heading out of town toward where she’d left the two Indians. She wondered how much trouble she was going to be in over that mess?

If she’d told him the truth, that they’d attacked her, the sheriff would have wanted to know how she got away from them? Which would have been awkward. If she’d told him she had military training, he’d freak out, thinking that something was going down on the reservation that the government wasn’t telling him about. Even if she merely said that she’d taken a self-defense course, he’d want her to press charges and, if she refused, he’d press them for her. She could see it all as if it had already happened. Endless interrogations. Hearings. A trial. Hell, no! She didn’t have the time for it – and certainly couldn’t begin to explain how she came to be out there in the middle of nowhere with no vehicle of her own. She’d hated lying to such a decent man, one who was trying to do a hard job in a difficult place – but really. What else could she have said?

It helped that she could tell he didn’t believe her story. But since she doubted that those two assholes would tell him anything different, he’d have to accept it. Neither of those two bruisers would admit to being bested by a female. They’d sooner die.

Ginny sipped her coffee and pushed aside her plate of the Wednesday Special. She knew she needed food to keep up her strength, but it was difficult to eat when her stomach was all knotted up. Damn those bastard aliens! She wished they were here with her now, because that would give her the opportunity to take all this anger out on someone. Killing a few aliens would really make her day better; she was sure of it. She hadn’t felt this helpless in ages, and she didn’t like feeling it now.

And all she could think about was how long it was going to be before she got to a big enough city to find an airport. She needed to get to DC. There had to be someone in the DOD who could help her find out what happened to HQ. Although she wasn’t sure who might have enough clearance to know about SHADO, and she definitely wasn’t looking forward to the hassle of trying to get in to see the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon. It would be faster to make her own time machine to take her home than to try and get an appointment with him. But there wasn’t anyone else she could turn to in this crisis. If only she weren’t so alone! Commander Straker would know what to do. In fact, she was dead certain that wherever he was, he was already working on a way to first, find a way to get them all together in one spot, and then, find an ingenious way to get them all back home again.

Her lips quirked at the thought. What was it about the man that made his staff so sure of his omniscience? Was it that damned stoicism of his? Or his ability to perceive scenarios beyond what lesser minds could even imagine? Or was it simply that she’d never really seen him at a loss? Even when they’d been trapped in that awful frozen time bubble, he’d behaved as if it were nothing at all to stop the traitor and find and destroy the rigged computer. She’d spent half her time that day terrified that they’d be stuck in that hell for the rest of their lives!

But she’d always been far too imaginative for her own good. Was that his trick then? Did the commander have very little imagination and so wasn’t bombarded with hideous possible outcomes that paralyzed his ability to think? No. If anything, he had too much imagination. She’d seen the horror in his eyes when they realized that time had been frozen on the studio lots. They both had known what it must mean to HQ and all of Earth for such a thing to happen. But somehow he had blocked all that out. Shut down the millions of questions and the endless useless spinning of wheels, and been able to figure out a way to handle the situation. He’d kept his head. Even in the impossible position they found themselves in, he hadn’t panicked.

She sighed deeply. Well, hell. That meant that she couldn’t either. How awful would it be if they all somehow got back to HQ only to have her write a report on her part in the adventure saying that she’d panicked? Lost her head? Given up in defeat and cried into her coffee?

No.

She squared her shoulders. That was one scenario that wouldn’t be played out – if she had to die to prevent it! From this moment on, her goal was to find the others wherever they had ended up. She’d worry about the second – and far more difficult – goal once they were all together. One task at a time. That was the commander’s secret. He focused everything on the step that needed handled now, then worried about the next step when it was time for it. That’s why he never seemed at a loss. He just kept moving forward. Eventually, even the stupidest person could make it home if they just kept heading that direction.

She toyed with her meatloaf, managing to eat about half of her plate by the time the sheriff’s motorcycle roared back into town. He pulled up into the parking lot of the diner in a cloud of dust and barely set the kickstand before storming through the door. He looked to be in a towering rage, and Ginny had no doubt at all that he was heading for her table. She wasn’t afraid. She was a woman used to rages. Commander Straker’s could give you frostbite, they were so icy. But this Indian’s dark eyes weren’t cold. They burned like a thunderstorm on a moonless night, black and swirling with emotions barely checked. She braced herself, sure he would simply pull her out of her seat.

But he didn’t. Sheriff Peoria stopped at her table, completely ignoring the stares of the other customers, and ground out between set teeth, “We need to talk.”

She admired his restraint and knew better than to test it. She stood up, laid the money for her bill and a tip down on the tabletop, and said calmly, “Alright. Your office?”

He turned without a word and headed out, not even checking to see if she was following.

* * *

“Tell me again what happened out there,” he demanded as he settled into his chair behind the desk.

Obviously, something had occurred to make her story sound even more suspicious than she thought. Damn! What had those two idiots told him? Didn’t they even have enough sense to save their own skins? What was going on? The sheriff’s face was as set as stone, and she sighed, knowing he wouldn’t be offering any details without her full cooperation. Yeah, like that was possible.

She gave him the story again, keeping it brief and without any extraneous detail. She’d had to tell lies for too long in her job to feel more than a pang at repeating these. But she wished she knew what had put that look on his face.

“And you honestly expect me to believe that bullshit?” he said tersely when she finished. “When you and I both know that’s not how things went down?”

“Alright, Sheriff,” she said quietly. “You tell me. How did things go down?”

He glared at her. “For one thing, there’s no sign of your car anywhere along the highway.”

She shrugged. “I’d been walking for hours by the time they came by. I can’t even begin to tell you how far away my car is from town.”

“Second,” he continued, ignoring her comment. “I know Josh Crow. He’d sooner lose an arm than part with his truck. And don’t give me that gentleman crap again. Josh never had a chivalrous bone in his body! What he always had more than enough of was bad ideas. The kind that would make him think that fate was smiling on him by putting a beautiful and helpless woman in his path. Only you weren’t helpless, were you, Miss Lake?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Sheriff.”

“Did he and Billy rape you?”

“No.”

“Did they try?”

As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t make herself deny it. So she simply stared back at him.

Peoria ran a frustrated hand over his face. “Look. I’m not faulting you for sticking up for yourself. Everybody’s got the right to defend themselves. As for taking off with the truck and their cash – well, I’d say that pretty much evened the score, especially since you left the truck here in town and didn’t just keep on driving.”

“So where’s the problem?”

He leaned forward and said grimly, “Because they’re dead, Miss Lake. Murdered. And guess who’s my prime suspect?”

 

**Chapter 5**

When Carl White Feather came into the sheriff’s office, he checked in the doorway at the sight of the Wasichu woman in the room’s holding cell. He sent the sheriff a questioning glance, which Peoria studiously ignored. Hell. Now what? They both knew no Wasichu killed his nephew and Yakama. The Wasichu didn’t know Indian ways and would never have left the bodies in that position.

Face down in an attitude of dishonor.

Wordlessly he handed his boss the paperwork from the coroner. When Peoria said nothing after reading through it, merely setting it aside, Carl felt the need to elaborate on the findings. “Jennings agrees with your take, chief. He says that they were killed after they were on the ground, and added that from the angle of the wounds the perpetrator was about medium height.” Involuntarily his gaze went to the woman behind bars, who was listening intently to every word they said – and who was of medium height. It gave Carl pause for a minute. Had the sheriff found out something about her that made him suspect her? He’d certainly torn out of the murder site in one hell of a hurry.

Peoria sighed. “There were only three vehicles that came through the village while we were sitting on the steps. Walter Little Bear’s truck, Leonard Running Deer’s sedan, and Gramma Black Wing’s station wagon. Since they’re all locals, I want you to check them out.”

“Okay. But Little Bear didn’t kill nobody,” the deputy felt honor-bound to point out.

Little Bear was a hundred and seven if he was a day, and the sheriff felt his lips twitch with the image of him shafting anyone. “I know, Carl. But he might have seen something.”

The older man nodded in agreement.

The sheriff continued. “Did you see any cars on the highway on your way out there? Either direction?”

“Nope. But if they turned around and went back the way they came, I wouldn’t have.”

Peoria tapped his pen on the desktop. “I know. I’ll check with the police in Rapid City to see if they noticed anything.”

Carl grunted. Wasichu never even noticed the changing of the seasons. Why would they notice anything else of importance? It was unfortunate that they hadn’t been able to find any tire tracks at the murder site. That would have given them a place to start, at least. “Too bad they paved that road,” he muttered as he put his hat back on his head and headed out.

Peoria grinned after his deputy, well aware of his meaning. Carl still remembered the days when the highway had been little more than a dirt road. The sheriff’s own memories of it were vague, since he’d still been a kid when it was first paved back in 1971. He picked up the phone and called the police station in Rapid City, quite aware that in the larger city it was doubtful anyone had noticed anything unusual, but wanting to put them on the alert.

* * *

“I don’t get it.”

Peoria glanced up from his paperwork to meet his prisoner’s grey eyes. “That makes two of us,” he said sarcastically. After a moment of silence he went back to writing his report, but eventually he gave in, put down his pen, and asked, “Alright. I’ll bite. What don’t you get?”

Ginny sat up on the hard cot, resting her head against the stone wall at the back of the cage. It was late and she’d been resting when his deputy came in. “Why are you still investigating the murder? I thought you had the whole crime figured out. After all, I’m in here. What more do you need?”

He sighed. “Do you honestly believe I think you murdered those guys?”

She blinked in surprise. “Uh . . . yeah.” She gestured to the bars surrounding her. “Why else would you lock me up?”

Unexpectedly, he gave her a wry half-smile. “You don’t know?”

She noticed the smile – and tried not to be charmed by it. “I thought I did – but I guess not.”

“Puzzled, are you?”

“I . . . yes.”

“Good.” He returned to his report, adding a few lines before signing it with a looping signature. He stood up and took the report to the filing cabinet, putting it neatly in a drawer. Then he went to the coffee machine, the only fancy appliance in his office, and made a cup of coffee that smelled like heaven. She couldn’t tell what he did to it, but when he brought it over to her cage, she stood up and reached for it.

The first sip was worthy of an orgasm. Indeed, without her being aware of it, she uttered a soft moan. Then she met his dark eyes. “Thanks.”

He didn’t trust himself to speak, so he only nodded and went back behind his desk, damning himself for being ten times a fool. He knew nothing about her except that she was trouble – and he didn’t even know what kind. He was an idiot for letting her get to him. But when he looked at her – looked deep into her incredible eyes – he only wanted to help her. In any way he could.

He realized he’d forgotten to make himself a cappuccino and cursed under his breath as he got up to get one. Damn her for messing with his head! He had to keep his wits about him in order to solve this case. There’d been a time when murder was an everyday occurrence on the rez, but those days were long gone. He’d been sheriff in Eagle Creek for seventeen years, and violent crimes had dropped off steeply not long after he took over from the corrupt bastard who’d been running things until then. David Peoria ran a clean department, and the word had gone out after his first few arrests. There’d been several hotheads who’d relocated to other areas of the state that first year. Since that time, he’d had less than one murder a year. And not one of them had been as tricky as this one.

But he didn’t bother to deny that the reason this case was so difficult to solve had the most haunting eyes he’d ever seen. And was even more of a mystery than the murder itself. “You act like you’ve never had a cappuccino before.”

She glanced up from where she sat on the cot, cradling the warm mug in her hands. “I haven’t. It’s incredible! What are the ingredients?”

“Right,” he said cynically. “A professional woman like you never having a yuppy drink like that? Get real.”

It would be hard to explain just why she’d never had a drink that had obviously been introduced after 1985, so she didn’t even bother trying. Instead, she returned to the original topic. Even though she really would have liked to find out what was in the coffee.

“Why is it a good thing for me to be puzzled?” she asked.

His wry smile reappeared. “Because it serves you right, since you’re the most puzzling aspect of this case.”

“I don’t see how.”

“Really?” His tone was ironic. “Then tell me this. You’re obviously a woman well-established in her chosen career, able to handle herself in any situation, and sure of her place in the larger scheme of things. How’s that for a thumbnail analysis?”

“Not bad. Where’s the puzzle?”

He snorted. “What is a woman like you doing in the middle of nowhere South Dakota? Why are you on the rez and what’s your agenda here?”

Her eyes darkened as she said, “My agenda? I’ll tell you my agenda, Sheriff. I need to get out of here! I have things to take care of that are more important than you can imagine, and I can’t get them accomplished here. Why am I here? Because my car broke down. It’s as simple as that. I’m not a threat to your reservation or to anyone on it. I just want to get where I’m going.”

“Ah, yes.” He sat back and took a sip from his mug. “The elusive car. Tell me, Miss Lake. What kind of car do you drive? Because we’ve found no sign of it anywhere from here to Rapid City.”

“My car?” Her gaze turned wistful for a moment. “My car is a 1985 Porsche coupe custom painted stardust blue.” She’d bought her right off the showroom floor, having fallen immediately and totally in love at first sight. And she’d only had a few months to get to know the car before she ended up shanghaied to another time and place entirely. With a pang, she realized she might never drive her car again – might never get back to her life again.

Peoria made a note on his pad. “Seems to me we wouldn’t have missed a car like that.”

Ginny sighed. “You’d think.”

“You don’t seem too worried about it.”

She shrugged and said softly, “It’s not going to do me much good in here, is it?”

“There!” he said suddenly.

She looked up in surprise. “What?”

He pointed at her. “That’s the craziest part of this whole situation.”

“What is?”

He leaned forward in his chair, his dark eyes piercing and direct. “How a woman who can handle herself in any situation could look so lost.”

It took everything she had to break away from the intensity of his gaze. There was a lump in her throat that made speech impossible for several minutes, but eventually she was able to say, “Sometimes life gets screwy.”

“I know,” he said quietly. And he did. After Hepi’s death, it had been years before life seemed normal again. “But it’s at times like that when you have to accept what help you can. I know you’re not too proud to ask for help. I know it. Tell me what you need, Virginia. Let me help you.”

She shook her head, turning her face away so that he wouldn’t see the moisture in her eyes. “I appreciate the offer, Sheriff.” She sighed wearily and laid back down on the cot. “But there’s nothing you can do to help me.”

* * *

In the morning things didn’t seem quite so hopeless. And after a good night’s sleep, she had her wits about her once more. “Don’t I get a phone call?” she asked him when he took away her breakfast tray.

He stared through the bars at her for a moment in silence. Then he said, “You gonna call more numbers that aren’t in service?”

She kept her face blank with an effort, realizing too late that of course he would have checked with the motel for any calls she’d made while there. “No. In fact, you can dial this one for me if you want.”

“Oh?” He set the tray down on the desk and picked up the phone. “Where are you calling?”

When she told him, he nearly dropped the phone.

* * *

“Sorry, ma’am,” the officer at the other end said. “We don’t have anyone listed under that name and ID number.”

Virginia felt herself sliding back into nightmare and forced herself to get past it. She had to think. Her gaze flicked to the sheriff, who seemed to be writing one of his endless reports, but who was in all probability hanging on her every word. Turning away so that it would be harder for him to overhear, she asked, “Can you check the records from twenty years ago?”

There was a slight pause, then the officer cautiously said, “I’ll check.” After a minute he came back on the line. “I’m sorry, ma’am. There’s no Col. Virginia Lake listed anywhere in our database.”

She swallowed hard. “Thank you.”

The DOD officer obviously felt sorry for her, because he said, “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Yes.” She sat up straighter on the cot. “Is there a listing for a Commander Edward Straker?”

“I’ll look.” After a few minutes, the officer said apologetically, “I’m sorry, ma’am. All we have listed is a Colonel Edward Straker.”

“That’s fine,” she said, relieved almost to tears. “That’s good.”

“But he’s been retired for over thirty-five years, ma’am.”

Ginny gasped. That wasn’t possible! Thirty-five years ago in 1970, the UN had approved the plans for SHADO under the direction of Commander Ed Straker. There’s no way he would have retired back then! What the hell was going on? Her eyes flew to where the sheriff sat, pen poised over his work but his dark gaze on her. Numbly, she said, “Thank you,” and held the receiver out through the bars for him to hang up the phone.

Peoria got up and took the receiver from her hand, silently going back to the desk to hang it up. What was the significance of the twenty years she’d mentioned to the clerk at the Department of Defense? Why would she ask such a bizarre question about herself when she would have been about fifteen and couldn’t have been an officer that long ago? Not to mention that his own research during the long night watching over her had brought that same time period to his mind. Twenty years. Just twenty years in the other direction.

He sat down in his chair, narrowing his eyes at her as she sat so dispiritedly in the cell. What had happened to her, and what kind of trouble was she really in? “Virginia . . .”

“Forget it,” she said huskily. “You can’t help me. No one can.” It was becoming clear to her that she must have traveled through time – not only forward to the future as she had first thought, but also sideways into another universe entirely. Not her Earth, with SHADO and aliens and the constant danger of invasion. But an Earth where somehow there was no threat; where SHADO had never needed to be created. Which was great for them, but didn’t help her world any. And she had to wonder if the other members of the command team had been sent to the same universe where she was – or another one altogether?

 

**Chapter 6**

Sheriff Peoria left at noon to have lunch at the diner with his deputy. An elderly Indian woman took his place, bringing Virginia her meal before sitting in the sheriff’s chair behind his desk. She had a bag under her arm which she set on the desk. In silence she drew out a plaid flannel shirt and, taking a needle from where it was pinned to the bodice of her dress, began mending the shirt with tiny stitches.

Ginny wondered who she was that the cautious sheriff would trust her to watch over his prisoner? But more than that, as she ate her lunch she wondered what he had to discuss with his deputy that he didn’t want her to hear?

* * *

Sheriff Peoria poured ketchup on his french fries and demanded, “What did you have to report that you couldn’t tell me at the office?”

His deputy squirmed in his seat, hunching his shoulders. “I couldn’t talk to you there, chief! That woman gives me the willies!”

Peoria stared at him in surprise. “Miss Lake? Why?”

Carl shrugged in irritation. “I dunno. Something about her.”

“What?” his boss asked, perplexed.

The deputy glowered at him. “I said I dunno!”

The sheriff held up his hands in surrender. “Okay! I’ve just never seen you rattled before.”

Thoughtfully, White Feather chewed on a fry. When he looked up from his plate, he admitted more calmly, “It is what it is, chief. I don’t have an explanation for it.”

Peoria accepted that. As a Native American, he knew life held many more mysteries than you could ever identify with just your eyes or your hands. The heart knew things the mind would never understand. But it bothered him that Carl felt something around his prisoner that he didn’t. What was he missing?

“But I’ll tell you what I do know,” his deputy offered.

“What’s that?”

“That lady never killed my nephew.”

“I know,” his boss said with a sigh.

Astonished, White Feather asked, “Then why you keeping her in the cage?”

Peoria’s eyes narrowed. “Because she’s obstructing justice, that’s why! She knows what really happened out there and refuses to say anything but lies.”

“Maybe she’s scared.”

“Maybe. But I can’t help her if she won’t talk to me, can I?”

That was unanswerable, so the deputy went back to his meal.

After they’d eaten, the sheriff sipped his coffee and asked, “What did you find out when you spoke to the locals?”

White Feather signaled for the waitress to clear their plates. Once the table was empty but for their coffee, he said, “I talked with Little Bear. His grandson drove him to Sioux Falls for a check-up. Neither of them saw any cars after they left the rez until halfway to the doctor’s office. Running Deer was coming home from hunting. He wasn’t thinking about anything but the five squirrels he’d bagged and said he didn’t see anything either.”

“Damn it! Josh and Billy didn’t knife themselves to death and toss away the blade! Someone had to have seen something!” Peoria muttered in disgust.

Carl’s lips quirked at the image, but he sobered quickly and said, “Gramma came into town to do her shopping, but she’d gone to Rapid City first for her meds. She only saw one car on the road, heading west toward Oglala, she thinks.”

“Why Oglala? There are other villages between here and Rapid City.”

White Feather gave a heavy sigh. “I know. But she recognized the car, so she assumed the driver was heading home.”

The sheriff met his deputy’s eyes, not sure he wanted to know what Carl was taking so long to tell him. “Whose car was it?”

“Meg Firebird’s.”

Peoria ran a hand over his face and muttered, “Damn it!”

“Want me to go talk to her?” asked the deputy, hoping his boss would give him something else to do. He didn’t handle the fragile ones nearly as well as the sheriff.

“No. I’ll go see her. I need you to talk to everyone she knows along the road. I want to know where she was going and why she didn’t make it into town. Got it?”

“On it.”

As they left the diner and headed for their vehicles, the sheriff added, “And tell my mother I need her to stay a little longer. Okay?”

“Yup.”

* * *

By the time the sheriff got back to his office, he felt weary all the way to his bones. He did what he could as the law in these semi-wild parts, but he wasn’t superhuman. He couldn’t always tell what others wouldn’t say for themselves. And it made him sick that he might have missed something five years ago when Crow had been sent to jail for raping Meg Firebird.

He’d done all he could to help her. Got her counseling with a kind state psychologist out of Rapid City. Held her hand during the trial to put Crow away. It had never occurred to him that someone else on the scene was in pain. Or that what Crow had done once, he might also have done again.

Because Meg Firebird hadn’t been driving her car yesterday when Gramma Black Wing saw it. Her younger sister Diana was. And Meg was worried because her sister had taken off, and she didn’t know where she went. Peoria notified the Rapid City police to keep an eye out for her, radioed Carl to be on the lookout, then drove back to Eagle Creek.

His mother met him at the door of his office, took one look at his face, and came out onto the porch, closing the door behind her. She patted his arm in sympathy, the way she had when his dog had run off when he was nine.

“You’re a good boy, Davey,” she said now. “But you can’t fix everything for everybody.”

“I know, Ma.”

“That girl you got in there,” she said, pointing through the door. “You need to let her go.”

He stared at her in shock. In all the years he’d been in law enforcement, his mother had never once tried to tell him how to do his job. “Listen, Ma. It’s not that simple.”

“She’s not from here, Davey. She’s a spirit walker from another world. You can’t keep her here. And you can’t fix what troubles her.” She leaned in and poked him in the chest, something she hadn’t done since he was five and stole a peppermint out of her purse. “You let her go!”

He was so stunned that he didn’t even think to help her down the steps.

* * *

When he stormed into the office moments later, Ginny wondered what the old woman had said to make him lose his temper?

Peoria came right up to the bars and ground out, “What did you say to my mother?”

“What?” she asked in surprise. “That was your mother?”

“What did you tell her?”

“I didn’t say anything! She didn’t speak to me, so I just assumed that she didn’t know English. What did she tell you I said?”

He audibly ground his teeth, stomped over to his desk and, throwing himself in the chair, proceeded to brood. Virginia recognized that mood. Obviously, something wasn’t going well with the case. And whatever his mother had told him only made matters worse. Great. That was just great. Was she never going to get out of this hellhole? She needed to find a way back home. She had no idea how, but surely there was a chance? All she had to do was think it through. Something was bound to come to her once she wasn’t a murder suspect anymore and didn’t have that on her mind. Sheriff Peoria had told her he knew she hadn’t killed those two guys. But he’d put her behind bars anyway. If that was an indication of the way justice was meted in this place, she wasn’t very confident of beating a murder rap.

After an hour of stony silence, the sheriff heaved a deep sigh and got up from his chair. Without a word he took his key and opened the cell door. When he pocketed the key and went back to his desk, Ginny ventured out into the room. He hadn’t looked at her at all, but she wasn’t sure that the opened door meant she could leave.

“Am I free to go?”

He finally met her eyes. His were as dark as night. Hers were confused and a little lost. Peoria wanted to groan. Why did she have such a powerful impact on him? Why couldn’t he just let things go?

 _She’s a spirit walker from another world_. His mother’s words came back to him. Was that what made White Feather so skittish around her? Did he sense the difference in her like his mother did?

 _You can’t keep her here. And you can’t fix what troubles her_. Damn it. He couldn’t just let the greatest mystery to walk across his path leave without at least trying to help. He said, “We kept your room for you at the motel. Get a shower. Freshen up. Then meet me at the diner for dinner. I’m buying.”

 

**Chapter 7**

Later, the sheriff’s mood lightened considerably when Ginny joined him at his table. Once free, she could have hitched a ride as far from Eagle Creek as her smiles would take her. But she hadn’t. And Peoria had to hope that meant she was finally beginning to trust him enough to let him help her.

“Feeling better?” he asked her as he held her chair for her.

“Yes, thanks,” she replied with a smile as she sat down. “And you?”

He had the grace to grimace. “Yeah. I’m doing better.”

“Is it the case?”

He glanced at her in surprise.

Ginny shrugged. “Look, Sheriff. I left those guys out cold in the middle of the desert. I worried a little that a snake might find them tempting, but I certainly never thought anyone would kill them when they were down. It just doesn’t seem very sporting, if you know what I mean.”

“It’s all in how you look at it,” he replied. “Revenge is seldom about being fair. It’s about justice – at any price. The truth is, if those guys hadn’t been flat on their backs, they’d still be alive, because the girl that knifed them wouldn’t have dared approach them otherwise.”

She drew a breath. “So I’m partially to blame.”

“No.” He rested his hand over hers for a moment before withdrawing it. “They brought this on themselves. You don’t go treating women that way for long without one of them finding a way to stop you for good. Crow and Billy were just too stupid to realize it.”

Ginny closed her eyes with a sigh. “They’d done it before. Attacked somebody.”

He nodded. “We know for certain that Crow did. A girl from the rez. She was strong enough to stand against him and testify in court. He just got out of prison days ago for that crime. But what neither she nor I realized was that he also attacked her little sister. The signs were there, but I just didn’t see them. I was too focused on helping Meg get through the trial to notice anything else at the time.”

He sounded so discouraged that she found herself smiling. “So I guess you don’t win the Superman award today.”

His charming smile flickered into existence. “I guess not.” He set down his menu and said, “I’m getting the Thursday night special. Barbeque ribs. You should try them.”

Her smile widened. “I believe I will.”

* * *

While they ate, she asked him about his job and how hard it was to police such wide open spaces. He found himself telling her about a few of his more noteworthy cases, but admitted that sensational crimes didn’t come along very often. Casually, he asked her about her life – where she was born, what kind of work she did, that sort of thing.

But Ginny wasn’t fooled. She merely raised her brows and said, “I would have thought you checked up on me as soon as you knew my name, Sheriff.”

“You can call me Dave if you want,” he offered. “I’m not on the job at the moment.”

She gave him a look. Like Straker, this was a man who would always be ‘on the job,’ no matter how relaxed he was. “Did you? Dave?”

“Sure. But I wasn’t sure I had the right person. Did you really come from the Appalachians?”

“Yes. Why?”

He shrugged. “I would have taken you for New York instead. It seems more your style. Sophisticated, you know?”

She laughed. “New York? Really? That’s very flattering. But I didn’t get any sophistication until college, I’m afraid. I was quite the wild child growing up.”

“I would have liked to have seen that.”

She shook her head. “It’s doubtful. I was a terror.”

“We’d have got on like a brush fire,” he insisted. “I was a juvenile delinquent waiting to happen.”

“What changed you?”

“My dad died in the line of duty. He was Tribal police, and a double D got ugly. Domestic disturbance,” he explained at her blank look. “Anyway, Ma raised us by herself after that, and times were hard. I grew up fast.”

“She must be very proud of the way you turned out.”

He could still feel her finger poke in the chest. He rubbed a hand there absently. “Most of the time.” Then he leaned forward. “So, you’re a scientist?”

“Yes.”

“What field?”

“If you checked, why do you need to ask?”

“Because I want to hear it from you,” he said disarmingly.

“Quantum physics.”

He whistled beneath his breath. “Now, there’s a field,” he said. “And you work for the military?”

She shrugged. “Most of my research is classified and has military applications.”

“You know, that’s funny,” he said, taking a sip of coffee.

“Is it?”

“Yeah.” He waited until the waitress had removed their dishes and refilled their cups before saying, “Because I spent some time last night studying you on the internet, and certain things just don’t jibe with what you’re saying. You don’t even look the same.”

“On the what?” she asked, her heart skipping a beat. Damn. If she was alive in this world, her path would have gone a different direction without SHADO and the need for the Utronics project. She had to be more careful what she said. The sheriff was skilled at getting her to let down her guard.

He frowned at her. “You don’t know what the internet is?”

“Should I?”

Peoria sat back in his chair. If he’d needed proof that his mother knew what she was talking about, he certainly had it now. “Not if you skipped the last twenty years,” he said. “Then you might not have heard of it. Or of cappuccinos.”

She brushed that away with a slender hand. “What do you mean, I don’t look the same? Are you saying you saw me? How did you do that?”

He gulped down the rest of his coffee, then stood and offered his hand. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

Ginny stood and cautiously accepted his hand. “Where are we going?”

As he held the door of the diner open for her, he said, “I’m going to run and get my laptop from the office, then I’ll meet you in your room and show you the information I found.”

She almost asked what a laptop was, but bit her tongue in time.

* * *

The sheriff’s laptop was a marvelous invention! Ginny’s eyes widened, and she couldn’t help herself as he used the keyboard as he sat on her bed. She peppered him with questions, but he admitted to not knowing most of the answers.

She eventually sat back on the bed and stared at him. “How can you use it without knowing how it works?”

He grinned at her. In fact, for most of her impulsive interrogation he’d been grinning, which baffled her. “Do you know how a car works?” he asked.

She frowned. “Sort of,” she admitted finally, but added, “This is different. It’s a lot more complex, for one thing. And miniaturized.” She had a thought. “Unless this is just the terminal and the computer banks are elsewhere?”

Peoria shook his head. A whole lot of things in the white man’s world had changed in the past twenty years. And most of them had to do with the invention of the microchip. “This is the whole computer,” he assured her. He brought the screen to a certain page. “And this is Google, the busy cop’s friend.”

Ginny frowned at the white page with the single word. “Why would a number help you?”

He looked at her in surprise. “What number?”

“Google.”

He blinked. “Google’s a number?”

She huffed. “Yes. A very large one. It’s a one with a hundred zeros after it.”

Peoria laughed. “Maybe that’s why they named it Google,” he said, but added at her blank look, “Because of how many hits you can get off it. See, it’s a search engine. You put in what you’re searching for, such as Virginia Lake, and it shows you where to find it on the internet.” He pointed to where the number of hits showed as the new page came up. “But with a name like yours, you get a lot of stuff you don’t want too, like sites for various lakes in Virginia. But this is the one we want.” He clicked on a link near the bottom of the page and turned the screen toward her as the new page came up.

Ginny leaned closer and saw what looked like a magazine article on the screen. It spoke of new developments concerning a particle accelerator at CERN, which seemed to be a laboratory in Switzerland somewhere. The quantum physicist instrumental in the upgrades was listed as Dr. Virginia Lake Nordis, an American scientist who’d been part of the project for twenty-two years.

The sheriff reached over and pressed for the second page of the article before she’d finished reading, and she gave him a look. He merely shrugged and explained, “What I found interesting was on this page.” He pointed to a photograph attached to the article. It was a candid shot of a handsome smiling couple in their fifties, a pair of labradors at their feet as they stood near a mountain peak. When Ginny looked closer at them, she saw that the woman looked remarkably like her – except decades older.

 

**Chapter 8**

Ginny flicked a glance at Peoria, who said, “She’s about twenty years older than you, married with kids and grandkids. See why I was confused?”

She sat back on the bed. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

“How about the truth?”

When she merely looked at him without comment, he sighed. “Look, Virginia. I already know most of it. You’re not from here. Not this world. Not this time.”

She swallowed. He sounded so casual about it. “Do you get a lot of that here?”

Peoria shook his head. “Of course not.”

“But you don’t seem surprised.”

He shrugged. “It is what it is.”

She had no idea what he meant by that, so she glanced back at the screen. The woman seemed to mock her from the picture, laughing at her for the choices she’d made that had led her down a different road – a road that left her alone for the rest of her life. Somehow he was able to sense her unhappiness, because he laid his hand on her arm after a moment.

“Regrets?” he asked softly.

Ginny shook her head, turning away from the laptop and the image on the screen. “It doesn’t matter. I wasn’t free to make her choices. Some things are more important than a good man and a cushy job.”

He stared at the grim set of her mouth for a long time. “You’re at war, aren’t you? In your world?”

“I can’t discuss it.”

“Alright.”

She realized she’d been a bit curt and said in a milder tone, “All you need to know is that it didn’t happen here. Consider yourself lucky.”

He got up and poured them each a cup of coffee from the small pot on the motel room’s nightstand. As he handed her a cup, he said, “So, what’s the plan?”

She looked at him in surprise. “What do you mean?”

He gestured with a wave of his hand. “Come on! You’re a scientist. I assume you’ve got a plan for getting back home?”

“A vague one,” she admitted. “I have to find the others. Hopefully, between us we can figure out a way back.”

“There are others?”

She nodded. “We were in a meeting when it occurred. The four of us ended up here.” Again she swallowed. “At least, I hope we all ended up in this world.”

“How can I help?”

Ginny pushed her hair out of her eyes and stared at him. “Why would you help me?”

“Ah!” he said with a satisfied smile. “At last. A real question.”

“It’s a fairly simple one,” she said, a bit miffed at his reply. “You’re a cop. I’m from another world. The logical thing would be to lock me up.”

“Logical, yes,” he said. “But since you asked a real question, you deserve a real answer. And logic has nothing to do with what’s real.”

She was completely bewildered. “It doesn’t? Then what do you consider real?”

He sighed and set down his coffee cup. “White men communicate mind to mind,” he said, gesturing from her head to his. “That’s of little interest to the Lakota. We prefer to talk heart to heart.” Once more he gestured, this time from his chest to hers. “That is where what is real is communicated.”

She still looked skeptical, so he added, “That’s how I knew you weren’t from this place, even before I did a search. That’s how my mother and my deputy both knew, even though they never spoke to you.”

Ginny was startled. “They know?”

“You asked me a real question. Do you wish to hear the answer?”

She stared at him for a moment, unsure all at once if she was ready for the kind of honesty to which he was obviously referring. His dark eyes mocked her ‘white way of thinking,’ but were not without sympathy. She finally said, “Yes. I want to know why you want to help me instead of put me back behind bars.”

He settled back against her headboard. “My answer has three parts, since the heart seldom does things for only one reason. The first part is that is who I am. I like to help. My mother spent most of my childhood telling me that I couldn’t fix everything for everybody. Hell, she told me that just today, as a matter of fact. Concerning you! But it is the way that I am and the main reason I became a cop. I have a need to help others.”

“That’s honorable,” she said.

His charming smile flashed. “Tell that to my mother! The second reason is what I told you before. You were a mystery, and I can never resist a mystery. I knew you were in trouble – out of your depth in a place you didn’t fully understand. I didn’t want to accept what my heart told me from the first: that you weren’t from my world. Even when my mother forced me to see it, I still fought the knowledge. Because even more than dealing with the mystery, I wanted the answer to include you staying here.”

He sat forward, his piercing eyes on hers. “Which brings me to my third reason. I didn’t want you to leave. I know in my head all the reasons why you won’t stay. Even if you were from this world, you wouldn’t stay on the rez in the middle of nowhere. You’re a city woman with city ways. Wasichu ways that have nothing to do with this place. But my heart wanted you to stay.”

She couldn’t look away from him. Her heart was pounding heavily in her breast as she whispered, “Why?”

“I told you about my mother and how she raised my sister and me after my father died. How it was hard. She never complained. And I’ve always known that’s why I’m attracted to strong women. Because of my mother. Because of her strength. Most Wasichu women aren’t strong. Their day is ruined if their hose runs. Which is why I came back here after college. Why I married Hepi, who I’d known all my life and who was very strong. When she died . . . it took me many years before my heart even saw another woman. But none of those I’ve known these past years have had the impact on me that you did in that first moment.”

“When you barged into my motel room after my shower?”

He smiled ruefully. “No. When I watched you climb out of Josh Crow’s truck as if it were nothing. I knew what it meant for you to have his truck. What he must have done. And what you would have been forced to do to protect yourself. And I was in awe of you.”

“You make me sound like something special.”

His brows raised. “Aren’t you?”

She shook her head, dropping her gaze from his. “I did what I had to do to survive.”

He chuckled. “Don’t we all? Some of us just do it with a little more finesse than others.” His head tilted slightly as he looked at her. “I like your style, Virginia.”

“I like yours too, Sheriff,” she admitted with a small smile. “You’ve managed to make me feel safer than I’ve felt in a long while. I didn’t even realize how safe until you let me go – and I didn’t want to leave.”

He stared at her in silence. Then he said, “But you will.”

“Yes. I have to. My world needs me. But if it didn’t – if I had a choice that didn’t mean abandoning everything back home – I might just stay here and prove you wrong about what a Wasichu woman needs.”

He grinned at her, wishing for a moment that it might be that easy. Before remembering that her world was at war and needed her ideas to help win it. He poured them a second cup of coffee, then said, “So, how do we find the others? A Google search will only tell us where their counterparts here live.”

“Yes, but it may be enough,” she said, turning back to the laptop. “Because if the team is exposed to this level of technology, it will be easy to find out where each of their counterparts are and go to them for help.”

“Is that what they’ll do?”

“No.” She frowned. “Because there’s no telling what kind of lives their mirrors live, and we can’t risk exposing people of this world to our existence here. But . . .”

His dark eyes watched her face as her mind raced, almost able to follow her train of thought. “What about your boss?” he asked. “Your commander?”

Ginny laughed, surprised that he’d reached the same conclusion she did. “Yes. It’s natural for our team to look to him, so if we find out where he exists here in this world, we can go to him for help. Of all of us, he’s the most likely not to have changed much. And even if he doesn’t have any answers for us, he can at least be a connecting point for the team to reunite.” Her eyes were shining as she met his gaze. “The guy at the Pentagon said he retired years ago. Can you find him?”

“Sure.” Peoria grabbed the laptop and went back to Google. “Ed Straker, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” she said, wryly aware of how much he’d listened in on her phone conversation.

“Well,” he said after a moment. “There’s lots of hits. Let’s see. Would he be a manager of a bowling alley?”

“No.” She smiled at the mere image of such an occupation for her uptight boss.

“Dry cleaners?”

“Not likely.”

“Here’s one. How about a professor at MIT?”

She leaned closer to the screen as he clicked on the link. “That one’s a possibility, since it’s his alma mater. What subject does he teach?”

He read the bio on the new page swiftly. “Astrophysics.”

“Oh, God! Is there a picture?”

He pulled up a head shot of a stern blonde older gentleman with piercing blue eyes even horn-rims couldn’t disguise. “Is this him?”

Ginny gasped. “Yes! Yes, it’s him!” Her hands went to her lips as she looked at that austere countenance on the screen. It was amazing how much more solid she felt just seeing his face. “It’s right. I know it is. It’s the right thing to do. It’s what any of us would do. We’d go to him.”

Peoria got out a pen and jotted down the address of the MIT campus building that housed Professor Straker’s office. “We’ll head out in the morning.”

She blinked. “We?”

“Yes, we,” he explained calmly. “Unless you’ve got your Porsche hidden out back, you’re going to need a ride to Boston.”

“But your murder case!”

He shrugged. “We’re doing all we can at the moment. The next move is Diana’s. Sooner or later she’ll come back to the rez, and when she does, we’ll pick her up for questioning. If she’s smart, she’ll stay away a good long time. I hope she does. I’m not in any hurry to put her behind bars. But in the meantime, I’ve got some free time coming and a desire to see the East Coast. What do you say?”

She smiled at him through misty eyes. “I say thanks.”

 

**Epilogue**

At HQ’s communications station, Lt. Ford oversaw the lunar module’s return to Moonbase, but kept an eye on the Commander’s office door at the same time. Something big was going down or the commander would never have called all the senior staff into his office at once. Ford wondered if the briefing had anything to do with the glitches they’d been experiencing onboard the Skydivers since their recent computer upgrades. Troublesome at first, the tracking problems only seemed to be escalating, and the lieutenant was fairly sure that the commander had been discreetly looking into the matter without informing Security. The lieutenant knew why, too. Straker wanted to find the saboteur, not just his work, and Security tended to be a bit heavy-handed in their methods of handling those kinds of problems. And the commander didn’t want any chance of the saboteur getting away with his perfidy. However, the commander’s delay in taking affirmative action was risky, because if the Skydivers had been tampered with, Earth would be in a world of hurt when the aliens launched their next attack.

Ford hoped like hell the meeting wasn’t for anything as serious as that. Maybe the commander had already solved the problem and the saboteur was well on the way to being apprehended. Maybe the briefing was for something else altogether – like a surprise Cinco de Mayo party for HQ’s staff. Ford grinned to himself as he imagined such a declaration from their strict commanding officer. Yeah, that would happen – right about the time Straker repealed his ban on Christmas decorations.

Suddenly, a shrill noise emerged from behind the office door, causing everyone in the Control room to grab their ears. Throwing off his headset, Ford lunged for the utility closet, grabbing the crowbar more by feel than by sight, since his eyes were shut tight in sympathy for his ears. He fumbled his way to the HQ office door, then wedged the crowbar in the small crack between the sliding doors. Another operative stumbled over to help him, risking permanent ear damage by removing his hands from his ears and grabbing hold of the crowbar with him. Together they managed to get the door open enough to slide it the rest of the way. But before they got the doors opened completely, there was a blinding flash of light from inside the office that made them drop the crowbar and shield their eyes.

All sound ceased, and eventually Ford opened his eyes. The other operative, who he could now see was Chuck Anderson, forced the doors back into the wall, and they both entered the room.

But it was empty.


End file.
